Defining Family

My entire life my perception of family was negative. Flopping around as a child and even more so as a teen I had no stability. It was easy for me to make a mistake and the price I paid for them always seemed to be more love lost. Being a cute baby I am sure I was loved dearly then. The mistakes made left that to fade.

Who could love the teenager breaking down her parent’s door to get the phone and talk to her friends? The teenager running up phone bills sitting home alone 18 hours a day with nothing at all to do. My own father dropping me off with a bag and $20 saying I was on my own for just such a thing.

Mom I must have wronged enough too because she knew what had played out and one grocery trip was all the saving I was worth. I remember clinging to my friends family that year for the love I craved. Crashing on the cement floor of her bedroom until the jealousy I created wanting her families time got me my eviction from there as well.

I am not sure how in my baby and toddler years I could have been so bad to earn stays at several places but home. Grandma’s, my aunts….. some say they should have kept me life would have been different. None choose to keep me though. Always was a reason that I’d wear out the welcome.

Christmas’s I just didn’t get the invites too. My family being too big to be included. My fault for having so many kids. Too many to love or include that is for sure. Once in awhile the guilt would get to them and although it wasn’t always an invite there was we wouldn’t make you leave if you show vibe. I did attend one or two of my dad’s side events.

I almost elaborated that my dad’s side meant my biological dad but then realized it applied to both really. Even the step dad’s family stopped giving invites. From the grape vines of little brothers I heard it was because there just wasn’t room for us. How do you look at your kids and tell them we don’t have family functions to attend because they won’t make room for us? It’s hard!

My bio dad the ones I did go to felt awkward. They didn’t make me or the kids feel welcomed. Conversations felt more like interrogations. I think I wouldn’t have been invited at all had I not lived with my grandma at the times. Being left out of the obituary was a clear sign I wasn’t family. Twice my entire family just secluded me and the kids from obituaries of family funerals we attended. Even when my brother ( placed for adoption as a child) was included. Talk about painful.

It’s not that my family has never been there. The year I was homeless teen my aunt she eventually did come for me. I was to angry to appreciate it. Months I was alone and cold and hungry. Teenagers have no idea how to handle the emotions I was feeling. I craved attention and I didn’t trust my family. I burned that bridge quickly. Of course I expected her being the mother she was, the christian she was to be the most forgiving. It’s her I feel the most judged. Feeling like she only reaches out to condemn my actions and never to show love or concern.

My grandmothers both did strive to provide for me as a child and teen. Adulthood they still helped. Again not sure I ever let myself feel like they loved me though. It was more as though they felt an obligation to me. Like their kids fucked me up and they wanted to pay for that in some way. It never felt genuine.

One calling the cops with false allegations of me murdering my unborn baby .The other claiming I was lying on a situation I couldn’t have been more honest about. Both of those events leaving me ever to have good relationships with them again. Life altering situations to be honest. Laying in a hospital bed being checked for a self abortion that never remotely happened changes you. Speaking up on sexual abuse and being called a liar changes you.

My brothers Gosh I love them both but to say we had a bond would be lying. My oldest brother I always felt like our father sold him off. He didn’t want to be bothered with child support. With fighting for visitation on his terms. That was too much to ask for his kids. So he allowed another man ( a better man) to adopt my brother. In return he was no longer his financial burden. There is no doubt he would have done the same to me had the opportunity arose.

My brother was my best friend. He would play barbies with me for hours and hours. His little blonde hair looked so cute in the girly dresses he let me put him in. The go cart our grandpa had won for us at the grocery store he sat on my lap and I drove him all over the trailer park. He was just gone in the blink of an eye. I didn’t see him again until he was an adult. I would stalk him at work. He was a cook at Steak n Shake. I hated the menu and yet there you would find me in the corner booth looking at the handsome brother I had lost. I’m not sure he knew but I did that for months on end.

My younger brother was my mother’s pride and joy. He was the child that came after she had learned all the hard valuable lessons. She was a better mom to him no doubt. I was already a lost cause. I resented him very much for the love he got and I wanted. His punishments so different then mine.

Not being home much the time I was there was hostile. Leaving my little brother to see me as a monster. Ten years in age difference didn’t help much either. It was like I lost them both.

Overall my definition of family wasn’t anything as it is now. Seeing Marc’s family has changed everything for me. Planning a family vacation in a cabin all together laughing and sharing. Spreading love to each other. Never did I think this was something I could have or deserve. It feels like a fairy tale.